Venturing into the wild - with animal encounters

Yeah that first photo - only a tease as it didn't happen. We were there, but after being delayed twice the helicopter flight was called off due to bad weather. That was yesterday. Instead we went and got breakfast (see photo) and went souvenir shopping. Thankfully there were plenty of husband waiting benches :)

Today was our bus trip deep into the Denali Preserve, an 8 hour round trip with several breaks in between. This was not a tour, but rather a shuttle bus. We were told that the tour buses don't even go very far into the park and that all shuttles stop when you see wildlife so you have the opportunity to take photos. And you get this for a fraction of the tour bus price.

We departed at 8am after having had breakfast at the Salmon Bake at 7am. Of course Simone and I were hoping to catch glimpses of the wildlife that had so far eluded us, including bears, wolves, caribou, foxes and mountain sheep.

Nice glass art in the bus center.

Once again, the landscape was absolutely amazing and makes you feel really small and insignificant. At a place called Polychrome Pass the mountains were all different colours, set against the blue sky and green valleys. Stunning.

Polychrome Pass. No words.

After spotting the odd moose on our way, we finally saw our first bear! I have not cropped the photo below to show you how far away he was. We were all very excited of course and everyone took plenty of photos. Little did we know that this would be bear 1 out of 7. And just before our final destination we saw a bear about 25m away from the bus, having a good old scratch and getting ready for a nap. He/she was not bothered by the bus or the vehicles coming behind us.

 Of course I took heaps more photos but I'm only posting a few here. I love how you can see the palms of the paws and how big they are.

A little grin before bed time?

Photos from the destination surroundings. Eielson Visitor Center.
You can see how far we went on the map below. The red indicates how far you can go in your private vehicle. The bus goes much much further into the park.

These interlocked antlers were found in the wild. It is assumed that two bulls were fighting when the antlers interlocked and one pierced the eye of one bull. They both died and the remains were later found by rangers.

On the way back the bear was still asleep :)

After the trip we checked out some reflection lakes that Terry had told us about. We were lucky that the weather held up and this particular one was sheltered from the wind a bit, so it was nice and smooth.

 We grabbed an early dinner at the Salmon Bake.

These are Simone's halibut tacos. The fish was very nice, the tacos themselves not so much :(

My Denali burger met expectations.

And to finish off, a nice rainbow on the way home :) Thanks Denali, it was a great day!

Rumbling through the wilderness

We still don't have much luck with the weather, we got up this morning to rain. There was a little sunny break during our ATV tour but for most of the day it rained and rained, lame.

So we did the Black Diamond ATV Treasure Hunt Tour this morning. We picked this particular tour because from the description we had this seemed like the best one where we could actually go at our own pace and take breaks to take photos. One assumption we made, which turned out to be incorrect, is that we would have our own ATV each. We were actually in one ATV with a guide driving. After a quick discussion after we realised this we were happy to continue that way.

The tour took us to dry riverbeds, through thick forest, up the mountains and we even got to spot a moose and her two calves close up. The mountains in the distance had fresh snow on their peaks so they looked especially nice today, even with the grey clouds hanging around. Simone has better moose pics on her blog as I didn't have my telephoto lens with me today.

We had a little break after about an hour to have a fully cooked breakfast. We had fruit, biscuits and gravy, pancakes, juice, panfried potatoes, hot chocolate, bacon and reindeer sausage. We could have as much as we wanted. Breakfast of champions!

Yesterday I made a reservation at local restaurant 229 Parks that has been recommended to us by locals and, as subsequent research has shown, which comes highly regarded by the foodie folks on the interwebs. This place is not really advertised locally and the sign on the roadside is easily missed. The building itself, which was built by the owners themselves, has no name on it. They go by reputation alone and judging by the fully booked place they don't need any help getting patrons into the place.

One of the things they pride themselves on is using fresh, organic local ingredients according to availability. This also means the menu changes almost daily, hence there is no menu available on their website.

Simone and I shared a serve of spicy spot prawns on homemade pasta, with crispy prosciutto. The level of spice was just right and we both agreed this was a great and tasty dish.

For my entree I had the fresh scallops, which apparently sold out the night before. They were cooked to perfection, silky smooth and the prosciutto with it made it even better. Now don't think that every dish on the menu comes with prosciutto, it just works out that the ones we ordered did.

Simone had the halibut, which was also very tasty. Head chef Laura actually served us the two entrees herself.

 For dessert Simone had two scoops of homemade vanilla bean and chocolate icecream and I chose the icecream sandwich, based on an online recommendation. My serve was huge! I could barely finish it and it only cost $7.